Public Statements

Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010

ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2010 -- (House of Representatives - July 15, 2009)

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Mr. KINGSTON. I thank the gentleman and wanted to rise today for a colloquy. And what this has to do with is some poor language that's in the bill, some on the House side and some on the Senate side. But the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Boyd) had put language in the bill that directs the Corps to report back to Congress an outline of the study based on the findings of the National Research Council workshop on water issues in Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint and Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa River basins, and we in the Georgia and Alabama and Florida delegations are in support of that language.

However, there was also some language that was put in by Mr. Shelby on the Senate side that directs the Corps to report the critical yield of Federal reservoirs on the ACF-ACT, and the majority of Members from the Georgia delegation are opposed to that, and it's a bipartisan opposition. It's something that we are very concerned about. We feel strongly that the Corps of Engineers' water manuals need to be updated and that what the Senator from Alabama has put on the bill on the Senate side will hurt that.

So what I would like to do, if possible, is ask the ranking member and the chairman to keep an eye on this issue and hopefully, as this thing develops, oppose the language that's been put in the bill on the Senate side and support the language that Mr. Boyd put in on the House side. Those two bits of language are not in opposition of each other. You can support one without the other.

But the one that we have the most heartburn about in terms of the bipartisan Georgia delegation is the Shelby language on the Senate side.